60,000 security personnel were deployed across India’s national capital on October 10.​ This included the police of Delhi and neighboring states, as well as paramilitary forces pulled from regions of India affected by armed insurgencies.

They sealed off central Delhi to stop protesters opposing the mass disenfranchisement of 130 million voters from reaching Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site on Parliament Street.​

The railways cancelled over 250 trains to Delhi. “So far as I remember, it has never happened in the history of Indian Railways that so many trains were cancelled just because of a protest or agitation,” said Shiv Gopal Mishra, general secretary of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF).​

Scores of activists already travelling to the national capital from other states of India were detained on moving trains and forced to alight at numerous railway stations in multiple states. Many grassroots activists in several other states were placed under preventive detention in their homes ahead of the protest. Paramilitary forces were deployed at checkpoints on Delhi’s borders, where vehicles were searched for any signs of protesters, placards, etc.​

Within the national capital, 45 metro train stations were closed. Internet and telecommunications were down in the four-kilometer radius of Jantar Mantar. Around Parliament Street alone, where Jantar Mantar is located, over 3,000 security personnel were deployed, with multi-layer barricades, each manned by about a hundred.​

Even outside this garrisoned zone, police held up commuters entering central Delhi at numerous checkpoints, causing traffic jams while enquiring about their purpose of travel before letting them through, to ensure they were headed to work, not to protest.

Communists fight back

Evading this anticipated hurdle, hundreds of activists from the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) had already positioned themselves the previous night just over three kilometers northeast of Jantar Mantar at HKS Surjeet Bhavan.​

A memorial to the freedom fighter and veteran communist leader, HKS Surjeet, it serves as an education center of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPIM] and also hosts SFI’s Central Committee office.​

The Delhi Police's midnight attempt to intimidate students at the SFI Central Committee office in HKS Surjeet Bhawan was promptly rebuffed by the CPI(M) party leaders there. pic.twitter.com/x45gOglsCk

— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) October 10, 2026

“But the police knew we were there,” recalled SFI activist Asikul. The police had tried over the last two nights to enter the premises to take stock of the preparations, but were stopped. Activists worried the police could barricade the gates and stop this mobilization of hundreds from stepping out to protest the following morning.​

Quietly, after midnight, student activists slipped out of HKS Surjeet Bhavan in groups of five, one after another, with cover stories for travel reasons if intercepted on the way. By six in the morning, about 250 of them had relocated to the CPIM’s national headquarters, AKG Bhavan, to the west of Jantar Mantar.

Back at HKS Surjeet Bhavan, where hundreds more stayed behind, barricading began between 10 and 10:30 am, just 100 meters from its gate, recalled Aman Saini, the Delhi State Secretary of the DYFI.

About 300-350 activists stormed out of the gates and made it through before the barricades could cut them off. Waving red flags and holding placards calling for the dismissal and arrest of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar, they marched barely a kilometer before facing a police cordon. The police lined up shoulder to shoulder, batons held horizontal to block the protesters’ way forward.​

Continuing to march, the protesters headed straight into the cordon. A tussle ensued amid chorus chants of ‘vote chor, gaddi chhod’, demanding the “vote thief” CEC’s resignation. As the protesters in the front line grappled with the police – each engaging multiple officers by dropping to the ground and resisting detention – others broke through the cordon and sprinted ahead.

Barely 300 meters ahead, a line of barricades blocked the road. Protesters stormed ahead and engaged the police. Slipping through the tussle, “I pulled the barricade from below and shoved its top. Thaad! – it fell over,” explained Aman.​

Wrangling themselves free from the security personnel, many more dashed ahead, several slashing their feet against the metal of the fallen barricade, only to turn left on Minto Road and drop another barricade.

They had covered nearly half the distance to Jantar Mantar, reaching within 150 meters of the Connaught outer circle, one curve away from Parliament Street hosting the protest site.

“But the barricade there was re-enforced. We had almost managed to pull one down when the police charged at us with batons,” added Aman. Having lost numbers at each of the previous barricades, “we were only about 50 left. So they managed to detain us and shove us into buses. At least six of us were injured.”​

Those who had evaded detention at the previous barricades, but were unable to push ahead, regrouped outside HKS Surjeet Bhavan and started sloganeering. Police, accompanied by paramilitary, charged with batons and detained them, and even allegedly tried to break into the premises, but were held back at its gate.

Paramilitary at the party gates

The contingent of activists who had relocated to AKG Bhavan under the cover of darkness did not have it any easier. They had only managed to stretch the security personnel and their barricades across two fronts. A paramilitary force began assembling outside its gates around 10 am, roughly the same time as the barricading began at HKS.​

Several members of CPIM’s Central Committee (CC) and Politburo, including current and former Members of Parliament, many of them grey-haired, were staying at the AKG Bhavan for a CC meeting. They joined the students as they marched out.​

“Some 20 people were detained right outside the gate – almost the whole frontline. The rest of us behind them pushed through. We kept running,” recalled Asikul.

About 15-20 minutes into the march, SFI activist Noel was detained. “I was not taken to a detention bus, where others were held. I was held alone in a bus used to transport the police. There I was beaten for two hours,” he said, sharing pictures of the injuries he sustained on his face.

“Two of my comrades realized that I was being held alone. So they intentionally got themselves detained near my bus and joined me. They also got beaten up,” he added. Later, when the police started marching them to the detention bus, allegedly prodding them forward by jabbing the blunt ends of their batons into their backs, “we managed to escape.”

Meanwhile, others had pushed ahead. Among them were SFI National Joint Secretary Aishe Ghosh and the DYFI’s national president, AA Rahim. They marched about a kilometer from AKG Bhavan before being apprehended at the roundabout near Gurudwara Bangla Sahib. The SFI alleged that “Aishe Ghosh was assaulted by male police personnel in the absence of women officers.” ​

A showdown ensued. Dropping to the road and bracing in a huddle, Aishe and other female activists held ground as female police personnel who arrived later grappled with them, eventually dragging them away to detention buses, about 1.5 km away from Jantar Mantar.

Other activists, including Asikul, had strode ahead, breaking through three barricades, and reaching within 400 meters of Jantar Mantar. “We were not able to break through the fourth. We were only about 35 left,” said Asikul.

“Using chokeholds and baton charges, they detained us. Some managed to escape detention by breaking out through a bus window,” an increasingly popular mode of resistance by the younger generation of activists, determined to make detentions as costly and as strenuous as possible.​

Detention at the stadiums

Asikul and the rest of the detainees were driven almost 50 km to Bawana in northwest Delhi and held at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium, where hundreds more were already being held. Among them was 77-year-old Manik Sarkar, a senior communist leader and Tripura state Chief Minister from 1998 to 2018. He was accompanied by the northeastern state’s current opposition leader, Jitendra Chaudhury. Veteran trade unionist and former Member of Parliament (MP) Tapan Sen, along with other ex-legislators, were also held there.

“There was not a drop of water in any tap in the toilet. We were not even provided with clean water to drink. When we demanded, we were asked to drink from” an old, ill-maintained leaky tank in the premises, said SFI activist Utkarsh, who was also held here. “We challenged the police to drink that water. They refused.” ​

When detainees began falling sick, Utkarsh and other activists warned the senior police officer in charge of this detention of consequences for mistreating a former Chief Minister and ex-MPs. They reminded him of his responsibility if one of these elderly political leaders fell seriously ill. Only then did the police “finally provide us with water and some snacks.”

Seven other stadiums in the city, along with several other public facilities, were reportedly turned into detention centers that day, when security personnel detained over 7,000 people from the streets of the national capital, including protesters, journalists and even pedestrians suspected of being protesters.

More than 7 km south of Jantar Mantar, near the INA market, outside barricaded central Delhi, police detained protesting activists of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), led by Neha Bora, one of the most recognizable faces of the protest movement.

Detentions were also reported in Raj Ghat, about 4.5 km northeast of Jantar Mantar, where the Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India (RWPI) and its affiliated mass organizations had organized a protest.

At the airport, almost 15 km to the southwest of Jantar Mantar, the police boarded a plane as soon as it landed from Mumbai – even before the passengers could disembark – to detain Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das, and Ashutosh Ranka from their seats. They are the top leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). 

“Cockroaches”

The pressure group started as a satirical protest on social media in May, after the Chief Justice of India said: “There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists.”  ​

The CJP has since become a material force, playing a key role in the protest against exam paper leaks that forced the Union Education Minister to resign in July. ​

About two months after his resignation, an investigation by the Indian Express newspaper exposed irregularities in the conduct of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar. Several times, his two fellow election commissioners had flagged their concerns about his potentially illegal and unconstitutional decisions.

These pertained to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, still underway after already deleting the names of 130 million people from India’s voter rolls – in an unprecedented shrinking of India’s electorate. Opposition parties have long alleged that this exercise is meant to help the ruling far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, consolidate its hold on power.  

Earlier this month, on the birth anniversary of Gandhi on October 2, protests began, calling for the scrapping of the SIR and the CEC’s resignation. On October 7, the CJP called on youngsters to take Jantar Mantar again on October 10.

In response to its call, thousands of youngsters, most in their late teens and early 20s, kept arriving in small groups to central Delhi throughout the day, only to be whisked away by the police.​

Detention as deterrence

“These youngsters, who were not part of any cadre-based organization, were particularly harassed by police because they identified them as vulnerable. They were threatened, their phones and keys were snatched,” said DYFI’s Delhi State Vice President, Rikta Krishnaswamy, who was held with hundreds of them at a makeshift detention center in Jafar Kalan, over 45 km west of Jantar Mantar.​

Bundled into a bus at the final barricade reached by the march from HKS Bhavan that morning, Rikta was brought here by midday, when “the electrician was still installing the fan. We were held until evening with nothing to eat – not even a cup of tea. The police are trying to make detention as much of a deterrent as possible.”

But the protesters were not deterred. The very next day, DYFI activists, including several central committee members, gathered at Connaught Place, a 15-minute walk from Jantar Mantar, which remained cordoned off, even as the overall restrictions on movement in central Delhi had eased.​

Custodial torture, sexual harassment

Soon after they began staging a protest, security personnel swarmed in. The detained protesters “were not taken to any police station,” according to a petition alleging custodial torture, filed in the Supreme Court by AA Rahim, the youth organization’s national president and an MP.

“Instead, while still near Connaught Place, the bus was driven to a closed and heavily guarded space in front of the Daryaganj restaurant, away from public view, out of the reach of the media and without any CCTV cameras. There, the detainees were sorted according to gender and then forcibly shifted into a specialized police van divided into five separate cells.”​

These vehicles “functioned as unrecorded, mobile places of detention, wholly outside the safeguards of the Constitution,” added the petition. “Inside the cells of the van, the detainees were beaten on the face, kicked on the backbone with boots and struck on the head. Several of the personnel wore no name badges.”

At a press conference on October 12, women activists of the SFI showed bruises and alleged sexual harassment by security personnel.

But even the alleged custodial torture and sexual harassment has not deterred the protests, which are widening, drawing in more sections of society into the agitation.

Farmers and workers to join the agitation​

Representatives of India’s largest and oldest farmers’ union, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the All India Agricultural Workers’ Union (AIAWU), the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), along with SFI and DYFI leaders, met at the HKS Surjeet Bhavan on October 14.​

Several public intellectuals and artists also participated in this meeting of mass and class organizations’ leaders, where they jointly formed the All India Platform of People Against SIR. This platform announced October 23 as a Nationwide Street Action Day Against SIR. 

Condemning the central government’s denotification of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site on October 12, the platform gave a slogan to turn every street and every village into Jantar Mantar.

Las autoridades detuvieron a Abhijit Debke para evitar alteraciones del orden público durante las manifestaciones estudiantiles.

Nerendra Modi intende forgiare un nuovo cittadino indiano, un nazionalista di Bharat, il nuovo e al contempo antico nome che ha imposto all’immensa e plurale nazione, prima al mondo per abitanti e terza per capacità economica, deciso a realizzare tale chimerica utopia, non disdegna di utilizzare tutte le leve del potere, anche in modo spregiudicato.

Segue nostro Telegram.

Arrestare settemila studenti è certamente un segno di debolezza, il tutto con un dispiegamento di cinquantamila soldati delle forze dell’ordine e militari, come a inizio ottobre 2026 a Delhi e in altre città a fronte del movimento di protesta che ha saldato insieme i giovani scesi da mesi nelle piazze per rivendicare un futuro e non l’insulto di “scarafaggi”, loro tributato dal ministro all’istruzione poi costretto alle dimissioni, termine trasformatosi nella definizione del loro movimento politico, il Partito del Popolo degli Scarafaggi, unitosi con i rappresentanti di tutti gli altri partiti dell’opposizione, decisi a rigettare i nuovi elenchi elettorali che hanno fatto sparire, è vero, alcuni indiani deceduti, ma anche molti del tutto vivi e vegeti, eppure sgraditi, spesso perché musulmani, con la capziosa giustificazione che non sarebbero cittadini indiani, quando lo sono da sempre, registrati nell’anagrafe nazionale e in quella elettorale, impropriamente accusati di essere immigrati bengalesi che si camuffano da indiani.

Le manifestazioni sono state aperte, in testa ai cortei, dai “resuscitati”, ovvero i presunti morti, in realtà in ottime condizioni fisiche e mentali, insomma quasi un gogoliano ribaltamento delle celebri “Anime morte”, infatti in questo caso non si contano nei censimenti i morti, ma si fanno sparire i vivi.

Delhi resta in stato d’assedio, le manifestazioni sono state generalmente vietate, tuttavia Nerendra Modi, dopo quasi tre lustri di potere incontrastato e di politiche di totale deregolamentazione neoliberista e ultra – induista, deve fare i conti con l’insofferenza ogni giorno crescente e manifesta di ampi settori della società.

D’altronde tanto accanimento interno contro gli oppositori è inteso a ovviare anche alla modesta estate del primo ministro, il vertice dei BRICS organizzato nella capitale indiana è stato un mezzo fallimento. Nessuno degli attuali promotori del multipolarismo si fida di lui, essendo un amico fraterno di Israele, nonché in combutta economica e militare con gli emiratini, a loro volta al servizio dell’imperialismo occidentale contro gli iraniani e in Sudan e Burkina Faso in azione contro i governi legittimi e contro i progetti di cooperazione di quelle nazioni con Cina e Russia.

Le politiche di Modi sono tutte orientate ad abbandonare la storica vicinanza alla causa palestinese dei tempi del non – allineamento indiano, privilegiando piuttosto la cooperazione nel settore degli armamenti con l’entità statuale israeliana, amplificata, come emerso dal trionfale discorso di Modi alla Knesset nel febbraio 2026, dalla profonda affinità tra il sionismo e l’estremismo induista propugnato dal Bharatiya Janata Party.

Al vertice kirghiso dello SCO, l’Organizzazione per la Cooperazione di Shanghai, di fine agosto Modi è stato relegato ai margini della fotografia ufficiale, mentre il presidente ospitante si stringeva al centro con il primo ministro pakistano, oltre ovviamente a Vladimir Putin e a Xi Jinping.

L’indiana Via del Cotone poi, visti i conflitti che incendiano tutta l’Asia Occidentale, sono sempre più aleatori, buoni soltanto per la mistificazione mediatica messa in campo dai media europei in funzione anti – cinese.

Le manifestazioni hanno per altro rovinato la festa per l’avvento, un quarto di secolo fa, il 7 ottobre 2001, al potere di Modi nel Gujarat, continuazione della parossistica celebrazione del suo 76° compleanno lo scorso 17 settembre, festeggiato con manifestazioni e pellegrinaggi.

La stampa d’opposizione ha insistito piuttosto nel ricordare come, solo un anno dopo il suo insediamento nel 2002, Modi abbia scatenato nel Gujarat una caccia al musulmano senza precedenti, un’ondata di violenza che ha mietuto almeno un paio di migliaia di morti, fatti la cui brutalità è rimasta tragicamente e traumaticamente nel ricordo collettivo.

Il vero dato che spaventa il primo ministro è il fatto che mobilitazioni di così grande portata non attraversano il vasto paese dai tempi di Jawaharlal Nehru e successivamente di sua figlia Indira Gandhi, tuttavia quelle erano manifestazioni a sostegno e non contro il capo di governo, nel primo caso per sostenere il Movimento dei Non Allineati, nel secondo per sottolineare la soddisfazione popolare per l’alleanza con i sovietici, volta a trasformare l’India in una potenza atomica.

Il nazionalismo indù del BJP, ovvero Bharatiya Janata Party, di Nerendra Modi sta invece tentando una rottura netta con tutto quel passato, immagina la nazione come capace di proporre sullo scenario internazionale una propria egemonia, se non esattamente imperialistica, certamente verso un mondo indiano – centrico. Anche in questo caso le aspettative di Modi si scontrano con la modestia delle relazioni stabilite con le vicine nazioni nello spazio eurasiatico e ugualmente negli altri continenti, mentre la proposta multipolare sino – russa risulta largamente condivisa dalle nazioni del Sud Globale.

La narrazione ufficiale di un Nerendra Modi quale figlio di un venditore di tè  dalle origini estremamente umili, è parallela alla lunga militanza nel Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, ovvero la Lega Nazionale dei Volontari, organizzazione ultra – induista fondata nel 1925, nota per la sua feroce adesione al sistema delle caste, molto prossimo ai criteri di discriminazione dei sistemi  fascisteggianti della prima metà del XX secolo. È stata quella infatti la scuola sociale e politica nella quale da giovane si è formato, rafforzando la devozione che tanto lui quanto i dirigenti e i militanti del suo partito portano verso l’assassino del mahatma Gandhi, ovvero Nathuram Godse, il quale proprio grazie a Modi dal 2020 ha un santuario che ne ospita le ceneri e che è meta di pellegrinaggio per tutti gli attivisti del Bharatiya Janata Party, lo stesso primo ministro si è recato più volte a Pune, mostrando convinta adesione alle ragioni nazionalistico – induiste, anti – pakistane e anti – musulmane che hanno ispirato quel gesto omicida compiuto il 30 gennaio 1948 a Nuova Delhi.

Alcune iniziative promosse dai suoi sostenitori nel corso dei festeggiamenti di settembre – ottobre più che aumentare la considerazione del primo ministro, hanno rasentato il ridicolo, nel piccolo stato del Tripura il governatore locale Manik Saha ha imposto, con vivo disappunto delle famiglie, alle bambine e ai bambini di tutte le cinquemila scuole di partecipare a concorsi di disegno e di scrittura in lode di Nerendra Modi. Il risultato è che dopo un decennio di egemonia induista lo stato di Tripura ha tutta la possibilità di tornare ad essere governato dal Fronte di Sinistra, guidato dal Partito Comunista Indiano – Marxista (CPI-M) e dai suoi alleati. Tuttavia questo fenomeno può apparire estremo, ma non isolato, in Rajasthan, lo storico partito dei Gandhi, il Congresso, oggi all’opposizione, ha criticato le direttive rivolte a studenti e insegnanti di tutti gli istituti scolastici statali e privati per la partecipazione alle celebrazioni per il primo ministro.

Proprio il Congresso sottolinea e documenta ampiamente come sia imbarazzante investire tanti denari pubblici per celebrazioni fuori luogo, quando, a detta dello stesso primo ministro, ancora molte siano le aree, non solo rurali, in cui mancano i servizi igienici e il collegamento, almeno per i villaggi più remoti, alla rete elettrica, il tutto mentre gli indiani scendono in piazza per protestare e al contempo gli attivisti del Bharatiya Janata Party scorrazzano in bus collettivi e motociclette da Varanasi a Vadnagar, città natale di Modi nel Gujarat, con gigantografie del primo ministro ed enormi bandiere arancioni.

Anche i conflitti in corso in ogni landa del pianeta stanno assestando un duro colpo alla dottrina ultra – liberista di Modi, il quale fondandosi sulla massima deregolamentazione e la più spregiudicata libertà per i capitali, con il drammatico risvolto di scarsissime tutele per i lavoratori, non rispettando mai le organizzazioni sindacali e le normative ambientali, ha accresciuto il Prodotto Interno Lordo prima del Gujarat, poi di tutta l’India, con una crescita ancora al 7% per l’anno fiscale 2025/2026, tuttavia è abbastanza evidente che l’economia nel 2026/2027 segnerà un brusco ridimensionamento, complicando di molto la vita di quel terzo di indiani che vivono di un lavoro nel settore precario o in quello informale, già molto poco avvantaggiati dalla crescita degli anni passati, tra questi lavoratori molti sono musulmani, cristiani, dalit, ovvero appartenenti alla casta degli intoccabili, e adivasi, i popoli nativi che quasi nessuno conosce e ricorda, ma sommano nell’insieme almeno cento milioni di persone, non è un caso che la modesta lotta alla povertà abbia visto piuttosto accrescere profonde e pesanti divaricazioni sociali, con una ristretta minoranza sempre più abbiente.

Il governo per altro è stato ferocemente contestato per quasi tutto il 2026 anche dagli agricoltori, il movimento dei lavoratori della terra è infatti riuscito a impedire l’introduzione nel settore di leggi smaccatamente liberiste e penalizzanti i produttori diretti.

I venti di opposizione non appaiono impensierire per il momento il governo, tuttavia l’epoca dei trionfalismi, come quando nel gennaio 2024 Modi ha presieduto la sfarzosa inaugurazione del colossale tempio di Ram nella città di Ayodhya, anche in questo caso come altre volte edificato sul luogo di una preesistente moschea, appaiono se non irripetibili, del tutto lontani.

Around 1200 BC, the eastern Mediterranean fell apart. The great empires of the Bronze Age collapsed, many cities were destroyed or emptied, writing disappeared from much of the region, and long-distance trade shrank to almost nothing. Archaeologists call what came next the dark age, and the name is earned: with few texts and almost no […]

Hacia el año 1200 a.C. el mundo del Mediterráneo oriental se vino abajo. Cayeron los grandes imperios de la Edad del Bronce, se destruyeron o se vaciaron muchas ciudades, se perdió la escritura en buena parte de la región y el comercio a larga distancia se redujo a lo mínimo. Los arqueólogos llaman a lo […]

More than 25,000 police officers were deployed across New Delhi recently to prevent demonstrations led by India’s new youth-led political movement, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Government authorities had denied the CJP permission to protest on public-order grounds. The ensuing security operation saw the authorities shut one in six metro stations in the capital, barricade […]

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